INTERVIEW
MARTIN LONG “T
his is the first new club we’ve opened in 10 years,” says Martin Long, CEO of LA fitness, as he shows
me round the brand new LAX club, which opened at the end of October in the heart of the City of London. “We’ve taken 10 years of learnings
from the LA fi tness chain and its diverse management team, as well as from the rest of the industry in the UK and around the world, and we’ve applied all that in a club we’ve built from scratch in a £2.5m project.” The result is a premium offering,
designed specifi cally for a City audience, which operates under the distinct brand of LAX. “There was healthy debate over the brand – some of the early workings still had it down as an LA fi tness club – but for me, it was a clean sheet of paper and I wanted to use a new brand,” says Long. “We’d been looking at the London market for some time, and when this opportunity came up I saw it as a blank canvas: it really was just a concrete bunker when we got hold of it. “If you look at the LA chain, there
have been lots of acquisitions over the years – single ‘mom and pop’ clubs being added to the estate – and there really wasn’t a clean landscape. This was an opportunity to take a very blank canvas and bring it to life. If we’d tried to do that under the LA fi tness brand, we’d have been starting from behind the curve. Just putting a new name above the door was the starting point for differentiation. “That said, we wanted to keep some
association with the LA brand. LAX has a standalone distinction, but we don’t hide the fact that it’s linked to LA fi tness by any means. “It’s similar to the hotel model in a
way, where you have different levels of branding within a portfolio. If you were in an Intercontinental, for example, you wouldn’t necessarily see branding for the group’s other hotel chains in there.
38 Long at the launch of the LAX club
Similarly, there aren’t many references to LA fi tness in the LAX building. The whole front end is different: everything from the key systems to class booking to contracts has been designed to support the simplicity of the LAX brand and concept. “However, LAX members
automatically have access to LA fi tness clubs, so although LAX membership cards use proximity technology – LA fi tness has swipe cards – they can also be swiped in LA fi tness clubs.”
A focus on fitness He continues: “We decided to set LAX at a premium level and added as much into the club as we could – all the current trends – to make it a very simple
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
The CEO of LA fitness talks to Kate Cracknell about the launch of the new LAX brand, positioned at the premium end of the market
but top-end customer experience, with a high degree of interaction and education.” (See briefing box, p39) The pressure on the mid-market
over recent times – squeezed from both sides by the low-cost operators and the premium sector – has been well-documented, and Fitness First has already moved to refi ne its offering in a bid to move its brand more upmarket. Has the launch of the premium LAX brand been motivated by a similar rationale? “I don’t think it directly refl ects that
market dynamic,” says Long. “LAX is simply about meeting the needs of the London market, and specifi cally the building above the club, where there are 5,000 employees working for a number of fi rms. It was about designing a concept that works for those time- hungry customers – somewhere they can get the most out of their exercise in the limited time they have available. “That’s why we’ve focused on short
format, small group training sessions – our new LAX20 and LAX30 classes – which are included in the membership and delivered both in the functional area and on the gym fl oor. That’s also why we haven’t included a pool. If members want to swim, they can go to one of the nearby LA fi tness clubs – there are several within easy walking distance – but we wanted to maximise the workout space at LAX.” In line with this very focused
approach, LAX also limits its secondary revenue streams to concentrate on its core territory of fi tness. “There are plenty of places in London where you can get a great coffee or a fresh juice, and we have a Tesco store next door, so there’s no point us selling bottled water or snacks. We just focus on giving our members everything they need to do a great workout, with the only thing you can add being PT.” Yet surprisingly, particularly given the affl uent City clientele, the club launched
January 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86